Mission 18-26 October 2003

On this page we will try to present a daily logging of our mission.

Sunday, 12 Oct. 2003
The last week before our departure to the observatory of Saint-Véran. The last preparations are going on, mainly to finnish the AstroWiebel, our own-design adaptive optic system in its final version.

Saturday, 18 Oct. 2003
After a full daytrip, we are happy to see the observatory again.


Sunday, 19 Oct. 2003
The weather is bad. Enough time for final testing of the AstroWiebel, our adaptive optic system.


Monday, 20 Oct. 2003 & Tuesday, 21 Oct. 2003
The winter has arrived...


Wednesday, 22 Oct. 2003
Nice sunny weather, with a wonderfull sunset.


This night, we had a clear sky for the first time. First task : test the AstroWiebel.
First installation of the adaptive optical system on the 62cm Cassegranian telescope:


Finally, the ST8ex camera attached to the tip-tilt system:


And the scope is ready for imaging!


The software controls the system:


And then.... first light:


NGC 7479, barred galaxy in Pegasus. Exposure: 18min, Binning 2x2, no filter. Little deconvolution to reduce effects of bad seeing.

We celebrate the success with this fine Belgium beer...


Sunday, 27 Oct. 2003
Our mission is over. We had a limited number of observation hours, enough to test the AstroWiebel, but we have to left the mountain with a lot of not observed items on our observation program. That's stuff for our next mission.
We have still to process our images and will present them on the AstroDuvel homepage.

We will close this diary with a panoramic view of the unique environment of the observatory: click on the image for animation (239kB).

Thanks for reading this diary. You're welcome again on our next mission...

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Last updated on 23 October, 2003
Homepage made by AstroDuvel. Email: Dominique.Suys@pandora.be. Comments and suggestions are welcome!
Copyright © Dominique Suys 2003
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